is located at IONA College, New Rochelle, NY (Westchester County)and is dedicated to providing access to the Irish Language in a variety of ways. Four levels in language classes and an annual day event celebrating the Irish Language with approximately 60 participants from the Tri-state area and Massachusetts. This blog is in English as it is for communication with all our students, beginners, intermediate and advanced.

1. The TEG site gives support to both teachers of adults and adult learners. The curriculum which is set out is a good guide to learning conversational Irish in a classroom setting. Most teachers who use this curriculum will augment it with grammar explanations and background information about the history of the Irish Language and its role in the history of the Irish people. Adult learners are usually interested in more than the acquisition of the language alone.

2.For more advanced learners the VIFAX portion of the Maynooth síte is very useful and again can be used by learners both within the classroom setting and for practice alone. The videos are fully supported by lesson plans and transcripts.

For too long the Irish language outside of Irish speaking families was supposed to be kept alive and well by schoolchildren, I think this has been finally recognized as being an unfair task for young Irish children. As soon as adults in Ireland start using Irish then children will be happy to use it too. I’ve never met a child who isn’t happy to answer me in Irish if I ask a simple question, (usually the answer will be accompanied by a giggle,) whereas it is often older people who will answer in English, indicating of course that the question was understood. It is often a lack of confidence rather than negativism towards the language that causes this. Although most Irish speakers have experienced negativism at some time or another. The support that sites like this one at the Language Centre provide can be very helpful to the small conversational language groups which are coming into existence timpeall na tíre

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About An Scoil Chois Claí

An Scoil Chois Claí came about some years ago when a group of people who wanted to learn Irish and a couple of teachers who wanted to teach Irish came together, but we were homeless, hence the name. First meetings were in a diner but shortly thereafter the group was rescued from homelessness by Muiris Bric and The Kerry Association and given a roof in their lovely headquarters in Yonkers NY. A year later Brother Charles Quinn of Iona Collage, New Rochelle NY helped arrange shelter for the group on the Iona college campus which is where we have been located ever since, offering continuing education classes in four levels of Irish, in the La Penta building. We also have a celebration of the Irish Language every Spring in our Lá na Gaeilge, Irish Language Day, whichis usually held in April.Brother Quinn sadly passed away in February, 2007, but we will always appreciate his assistance and his lifelong dedication to the Irish Language.

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Classes and Events

Evening Classes are open to the public and are conducted at Iona College, New Rochelle, NY.

Irish Language Day

An Irish Language Immersion Day, Lá na Gaeilge, is held annually drawing approximately 70 people together to a convivial environment where exposure to Irish is the primaryfunction, with generous helpings of key ingredients craic, siamsa and spraoi.

Múinteoirí - Current Teachers

Caoimhe Ní Bhaoill has over twenty years experience teaching Irish in the Irish School System and at Summer Colleges in Ireland. Her expertise includes modern and old Irish. She has been teaching Irish in New York for over 7 years.Eibhlín Zurell has a long standing involvement with Daltaí na Gaeilge, in running the Irish Language immersion weekends and an annual immersion week. She has also been teaching Irish for over seventeen years in the tri-state area, and has been an invited teacher and speaker at Irish Language Events throughout the country.Hilary Sweeney (de Bhál, bean Mhic Suibhne) has been teaching Irish in the NY area with Irish cultural organizations and with Daltaí na Gaeilge since 1999. She currently teaches Irish in the Irish Studies Program at New York University. She is frequently an invited teacher at Irish Language Events throughout the country. She writes the Irish Language Blog Hilary NY